Gu: wind beneath the mountain, taking charge

Wind beneath the mountain: the word "affair" first

Gu (蠱) is the 18th hexagram: Xun (wind) below, Gen (mountain) above, with the Great Image (大象) "beneath the mountain there is wind". Its yang lines are in places two, three and six; the other three lines are yin. Today the character is best known from words for bewitching, but the Xu Gua gives the name just one explanation: "Gu means affairs", things waiting to be handled.

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Gu and Sui: Sui is both the inverse and the reversed form of Gu.

The Commentary on the Judgments (彖传) opens with "the firm goes up and the soft comes down", which the figure shows: the top line is yang (firm) and the bottom line is yin (soft).

The judgment: three days before, three days after

The judgment of Gu is "yuan heng; fitting to cross the great river; three days before Yang Wood, three days after". The first two clauses are easy; the last one has to be counted on the stems.

Gu: the firm goes up and the soft comes down; yielding and halting: this is Gu. Gu has great success, and the world is in order. "Fitting to cross the great river": to go is to have affairs. "Three days before Yang Wood, three days after": the end brings a beginning, which is heaven's movement.

The ancients counted days by the ten stems, which run in rounds of ten. Counting literally, the three days before a Yang Wood (甲) day are Yin Metal, Yang Water and Yin Water, and the three after are Yin Wood, Yang Fire and Yin Fire. The Commentary first explains "fitting to cross the great river": "to go is to have affairs". Then it explains the last clause: "the end brings a beginning, which is heaven's movement": Yin Water ends and Yang Wood returns, a round finishes and another starts.

The Great Image: rouse the people and nurture virtue

The Great Image of Gu is as short as the Great Image of Sui.

Beneath the mountain there is wind: Gu. The noble person stirs the people and nurtures virtue.

The first verb is usually read as to stir up or set in order, and the second as to nurture. In the image a mountain presses on the wind, and in the conduct there is one verb of stirring: the wind is held down, so people must do the stirring; and nurturing virtue lies the other way, inward. This is one reading; the text does not develop it.

The six statements: "take charge" all the way, then "not serving"

In the six statements, "take charge" appears four times, "ease" once and "not serving" once.

Line 1: "Taking charge of the father's affair: there is a son, the late father is without fault; danger, but good in the end." The punctuation of the middle part is disputed; the Small Image (小象) says "his intent is to carry on for the late father". Line 2: "Taking charge of the mother's affair: it is not to be held rigidly", and the Small Image says "he gets the middle way". Line 3: "Taking charge of the father's affair: a little regret, but no great fault"; the Small Image closes on "no fault in the end".

Line 4 changes the verb to "ease": "Easing the father's affair: going on, one will see shame", with "going on, he has not yet got it". Line 5: "Taking charge of the father's affair: praise is gained", with "he carries it on with virtue". The top line is written another way altogether: "Not serving kings and lords, holding his own affair lofty", and the Small Image says "his aim can serve as a rule".

Sui and Guimei: the neighbors of Gu, and why it follows Sui

Gu's inverse and reversed form are both Sui; how that works is explained in the article on Sui. Here we look at the nuclear hexagram: taking the second to fourth lines as the lower trigram (Dui) and the third to fifth as the upper (Zhen) gives Guimei (歸妹).

The Xu Gua sets Gu after Sui because following is sure to bring affairs:

A person who follows another gladly will surely have affairs on hand; therefore Gu comes next. Gu means affairs.

The hexagram after Gu is Lin, taken up in the next article.